Perfection

Michael J. Hyde is University Distinguished Professor of Communication Ethics in the Department of Communication and is on the faculty of the Program for Bioethics, Health and Society in the School of Medicine, Wake Forest University. He is the author of The Life-Giving Gift of Acknowledgment and the award-winning The Call of Conscience. In addition, he is the editor of The Ethos of Rhetoric and Communication Philosophy and the Technological Age; with Walter Jost he co-edited Rhetoric and Hermeneutics in Our Time and he is co-editor of After the Genome - A Language for Our Biotechnological Future. He and his wife live in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

• PrefaceChapter 1: Coming to Terms with PerfectionChapter 2: God on a Good DayChapter 3: Interpreting the CallChapter 4: The Otherness All Around UsChapter 5: ReasonChapter 6: BeautyChapter 7: The Lived BodyChapter 8: The Good Life, the Good DeathChapter 9: The Biotechnology DebateChapter 10: On Being an OxymoronNotesIndex

Hyde (communication ethics, Wake Forest Univ.) argues that humans "embody a metaphysical desire for perfection," and he aims to show this by reviewing the pertinent thinking of a very large number of writers, from ancient history to the present, in philosophy, religion, science, and the arts--in a sense, the entire "Western canon." His review of the pertinent thinking of the included writers is interesting, engaging, and informative in a way that draws the reader in. To flesh out his inquiry, Hyde goes into detail in two "case studies" that illustrate the metaphysical desire for perfection: "The Rhetorical Situation of Terri Schiavo" and the recent motion picture As Good as It Gets. VERDICT This book should be of interest to a large readership from scholars to lay readers; highly recommended for philosophy and cultural studies collections in most libraries. -- Library Journal, 2010